About Anagrav
Hey, I’m Alexander (Alex) Hekmat, a 21 year old senior at Columbia University. I built Anagrav completely on my own. I’ve always loved the actual process of finding words and competing with other people, but I kept feeling like the word games on the market were pretty boring to look at. Most of them felt bland and repetitive, even when what was happening in the game was actually exciting. I wanted my game to match that feeling.
A word game that feels like an arcade game
I wanted to take a word game and turn it into something that felt more like an arcade game, with expressive pixel art, animated characters, rocket engines, combos, and those intense moments where you’re stressing and somehow need to find a word to save yourself.
More than anything, I wanted the act of finding a word to actually feel satisfying. When you submit a word, I didn’t want it to just disappear from the screen and add some points to a counter. I wanted something to happen. You shoot upward, the tiles react, the sound kicks in, your momentum changes, and you immediately want to find the next word.
How I built it
I built Anagrav over about a month or so as a solo developer while also keeping up with my coursework at university, although I had been experimenting with mobile word games and anagram ideas for quite a while before that.
The project actually started in Unreal Engine, but I eventually moved everything over to Unity and committed to a 2D pixel-art style. I used Unity and C# for the game itself and Aseprite throughout the pixel-art process.
I also did a lot of playtesting with close friends throughout development. Watching other people play showed me where things were confusing, too slow, or just not as fun as I expected, and I kept adjusting the game around that feedback.
Fair by design
All purchases are purely cosmetic. Nothing you buy gives you more fuel, higher scores, or any gameplay advantage.
Even revives are something you earn through the gameplay itself, by recovering from free fall.
What’s next
I definitely want to keep building Anagrav. The feature I’m most excited about is real-time PvP: a race where everyone is playing under the same conditions, the clock never stops, and you’re competing to find words, keep your momentum, and reach the finish first.
Questions, bugs or ideas? Get in touch